Year 9 had a singing practice in the Chapel tonight with Year 7 and 8.

As Year 12 continue sitting their HSC exams, the hall is not available for the Headmaster’s assembly.

Today Mr Hill spent the assembly time presenting the Year 9 assessment schedule for Term 4. He spoke about how to prepare and the boys wrote the necessary information in their diaries in order to start preparing.

He also spoke about the exam period and the need to be present for all exams. The boys also received a study guide and Mr Hill explained how to use it in order to start preparing for exams.

The final exams for the year commence on 27 November which is less than 7 weeks away.

Year 9 did the offertory, readings, handed out mass booklets at last Sunday’s evening Mass in the beautifully renovated Chapel. It was the night before the first HSC exam so the Chapel was full with all of Year 12 in attendance.

A few pictures of the Year 9 boys involved in the cricket camp during the Term 3 holidays.

In 2^nd XI, we played a GPS Trial against Sydney Grammar and Joeys 4/53 defeated Grammar 10/52.

The year 9 boys starred capturing all the 10 Grammar wickets and Adrian Dawson top scored when we batted.

Summary of performances are:

Adrian Dawson

Bowling                               4 wickets for 12 runs (5 overs)

Fielding                               1 catch

Batting                 18 runs

George Martin

Bowling                               4 wickets for 11 runs (5.4 overs)

Willis Gunesekera

Bowling                               2 wickets for 16 runs (6 overs)

Ben Jones also played but didn’t get the opportunity to have a bowl or bat.

Will Coffey played 1^st XI and was top scorer with 63 runs and took 2 wickets with his bowling.

This morning the following boys were recognised at assembly for various sporting performances:

Luca Burnett: Set a new GPS High Jump record at the AAGPS Athletics carnival at 1.94 metres.

Charlie Cannon: Set a new GPS record of 4 m 21.24  in the 1500m race at the AAGPS carnival. Charlie then broke the record again at the CIS Athletics carnival in a time of 4m 16.71.

William Maffey: Selected in the NSW CIS U15 Cricket team

William Coffey: Selected in the NSW CIS U15 Cricket team

Congratulations to the following boys who today were presented with Academic Application Awards at the Headmaster’s assembly.

Thomas Burke
Joseph Carrigan
Thomas Chaplin
William Coffey
Adrian Dawson
Gianluca Della Picca
Nicholas Kochanowicz
William Maffey
Jed McKelvey
Michael Murphy
Thomas Newton
Brendan Quirk
Jonathon Ryan
Oliver Scott
Nicholas Vesper
James Watts
William Young

 

Last Sunday night the boarders had the first mass for the year in the Chapel which has just been renovated. Parents and friends are always welcome to join us on Sunday nights for Mass which starts at 8:15pm.

As part of Year 9 commerce the boys are competing in the ASX online sharemarket game. A syndicate from Joeys Year 9 consisting of Jed McKelvey, Cameron O’Sullivan and Will Young are currently FIRST in NSW and FIFTH in Australia.

The boys are attempting the online NAPLAN readiness test this morning.

Each Thursday night all the clean washing is returned and the boys make their beds – they love it and always say how much they miss doing the same thing at home.

Congratulation to the following boys who received awards for their strong performance in the recent Australian Science Competition:

Zac Hallinan

Matthew Jarjoura

Nicholas Kochanowicz

Cameron O’Sullivan

Jon Ryan

Joe Carrigan

Will Coffey

Adrian Dawson

Lochlann Giles

Joe McCauley

Brendan Quirk

Last Tuesday the boys spent the day at St Joseph’s Baulkham Hills. Fr Gavin started with a Mass for the boys then a Joeys Old Boy, James Cummins, spoke to the boys. They then broke into different groups to rotate through 4 different activities.

Today during Period 2 Shannai Pearce from the Black Dog Institute came and spoke to the boys about mental fitness. It relates to the “Biteback Challenge” that the boys have been doing during Pastoral groups for the last few weeks.

Shannai gave the boys some easy to use tips which research has proven helps mental fitness. Tonight in the dorms we will be using one of her tips: think about 3 things which you were grateful for during the day.

Four of our talented readers from Year 9 and 10 did a fantastic job participating in the Santa Sabina Youth Review Forum, along with students from Santa Sabina, St Patrick’s College, Strathfield and Meriden College. The forum members, George Johnson, Daniel Gibbons, Brendan Quirk and Cameron Horne, were asked to read four of the six books shortlisted by The Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) for the 2017 Book Awards in the Older Readers Category and then discuss their responses to the novels with other students, in front of an audience of around 150 Year 10 Santa Sabina students. A special mention to Cameron Horne who was the only panel member to read all six of the shortlisted books.

The nominations for Book of the year 2017 were, One Would Think the Deep by Claire Zorn, The Bone Sparrow by Zana Fraillon, Waer by Meg Caddy, Yellow by Megan Jacobson, Frankie by Shivaun Plozza and Words in Deep Blue by Cath Crowley. It is a somewhat controversial selection of novels, with all but one dealing with social realism and four of the six written by debut authors.

The students on the panel, as well as the Year 10 Santa Sabina audience concluded that Words in Deep Blue was the book which most appealed to them, with The Bone Sparrow coming a close second. Their choice was not endorsed by the CBCA who awarded Book of the Year for Older Readers to Words in Deep Blue by Clair Zorn at the CBCA awards. While this was not the panel’s top pick, it was a book most of the panel members very much enjoyed reading.

This is a wonderful opportunity for teenagers from a range of schools to come together an openly discuss a range of books.